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Towards the end of 2001, Jason
O’Brien was the DaC Help Desk supervisor, making the trip
from home to Brunswick House each work day on his Suzuki 600
motorbike. That was until the day when Jason became involved in
an appalling accident in Great Eastern Street. He was almost at work when suddenly a car turned right in front of him, throwing Jason off the bike and projecting him at high speed into a traffic bollard. Coming off the bike itself left Jason with several cuts and bruises, but the real damage came when he was thrown into the bollard with such force that he sustained internal injuries requiring emergency surgery during which a part of his intestine had to be removed. When Call Sign spoke to him in his hospital bed, Jason remembered with little fondness that by then he had already been in hospital for around 4 months and had still not been allowed any solids to eat. His wound had been healing very slowly, but was still so big that you could actually see inside his stomach and he had a net and plastic bag placed over it to stop anything falling out! But even that wasn't Jason’s biggest problem. He also had a tear in the small bowel that was pumping up fluid. Jason had already had so |
Eight years on and… Jason is back in the saddle! |
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 much surgery carried out in the bowel area, that the surgeon was reluctant to go in again. Consequently he spent most of his time lying in bed with the plastic see-through bag that kept filling up with those stomach fluids coming through the wound. The fact that the accident wasn’t Jason’s fault seemed totally irrelevant to him at the time. But a successful operation to resection the bowel and cut away a further piece of intestine gave Jason hope of a return to some form of normality. However, although the leaking had stopped, the wound itself had not properly healed yet. But he kept smiling throughout. "As an early riser, I had to train |
myself not to wake up before breakfast had
finished," he told us. "Though your body eventually gets used to
not eating solids, after several months without food, the smell
of breakfast presents a huge difficulty. My best option was to
wake up after everyone else had eaten!" Jason has been with Dial-a-Cab since 1990 and has had to make difficult decisions along the way, but none so hard as the one he took in 2009 - eight years after the accident. "I decided to buy myself another motor bike," he told us. "I bought it without riding it first and in all honesty, I was afraid to get back on it. I was also worried about what my wife would say, after all, she sat and watched me barely survive in 2001 and I couldn’t help but wonder whether she’d be happy about me getting back on a bike. But she was fine about it and once I did it, all the old confidence came flooding back. I also feel much safer because I’m now a bit older and a bit wiser. Nowadays, if I can’t see the whites of their eyes, I assume they can’t see me either and keep well clear…! |
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The TX4H comes a step nearer! |
In December 2007, Call Sign exclusively revealed
after a trip to their factory in Coventry that LTI would
be working on an electric taxi and also planning a hydrogen
fuel-cell TX4. In July 2008, we went further and said that
between 50 and 100
London cabs would be fitted with hybrid engines, comprising of a
hydrogen fuel-cell system and electric motor. Part-funded by the
UK government’s Technology Strategy Board, the initiative
would allow LTI and their partners for the hydrogen project,
Intelligent Energy - the clean
power systems company - to test fuel-cell
electric hybrids under arduous real-world conditions – and what
form of vehicle was better placed than a licensed London taxi!On the 9th October 2009, Intelligent Energy played host to Energy minister, David Kidney, Parliamentary Undersecretary of State for the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC). The minister met with Intelligent Energy Chief Executive, Dr Henri Winand, to discuss the importance of greater investment in UK-based clean technology innovation. During the visit to their facilities in Loughborough, the minister was given a hands-on demonstration of the hydrogen fuel-cell, which will be installed into a fleet of zero emission London taxis in time for the London Olympics in 2012. The minister operated the fuel-cell with a simple press of a button, instantly generating around 30 kilowatts of energy - enough to provide propulsion to the iconic London taxi. Mr Kidney told Call Sign: "I was very pleased to visit Intelligent Energy, where I had the chance to see first-hand the exciting developments they’ve made in their drive towards the commercialisation of hydrogen and fuel-cell technologies and in particular the work they’re doing to introduce low carbon taxis into London by 2012. It is essential that we bring forward these innovative low carbon technologies to tackle the challenge of climate change. DECC’s new competition, launched in September for up to £7.2 million of funding for hydrogen and fuel cell technology demonstration, will fill a current gap in the innovation chain relating to scale-up and deployment of this low carbon technology. The competition is a clear measure of Government support for this innovation." The taxis will be able to operate for a full day without refuelling and have a top speed of 75mph. It is also claimed that the fuel-cell power-train will provide even better acceleration than current models. Taxis would be able top up their hydrogen tanks at central depots using a refuelling process that takes just a few minutes. Even winter would prove to be no problem with the fuel-cell system being able to function at temperatures down to -20C. It will fit in the space where the VM engine currently sits in the TX4… |
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